NEW LOOK

Customer Journey Field Studio

Background

New Look came to us looking for insights and ideas. As a business they were just starting to build bigger internal product teams, and their existing mobile app wasn't performing as well as they had hoped. They wanted to know more about the whole multi-channel shopping journey, and gain fresh ideas in areas they could focus their efforts.

We carried out a Field Studio, which is a rapid research technique that we use, based on the Google Design Sprint. Due to the flexibility of the Field Studio, we can tailor it to fit within the specific needs of any project. For this project, their specific need was insight into the online and offline shopping journey, so we tailored the process to include ethnography study, in-store observations and co-creation workshops.

Preperation

The preparation for a Field Studio needs to be precise and methodical, as all activities need to happen rapidly. Another UX Architect and I spent 2 weeks planning and prepping to:

Create a research plan

Define participant segmentation needs

Liaise with recruiters

Draft discussion guides

Develop session materials

Ethnography - Days 1 & 2

We carried out ethnography studies in consumers' homes at the weekend, asking them questions regarding their whole shopping journey, from writing things down on a list at home, to actually carrying out shopping, whether in store or online. We would follow our drafted discussion guide, however it would flow naturally and in the participants' perspective this would feel as if it was an open discussion, rather than a guided session. We would use visual triggers that we had developed in preparation to prompt discussion around certain ideas that we wanted to explore, and get feedback on these ready for the iteration for days 3&4.

After the in-home interview sessions with the participants, we would move onto in-store observations in which we would give participants money and observed them carrying out their normal shopping in-store. This enabled us to collect natural observations on in-store behaviour and interactions to determine any pain points that may arise.

Ideation and iteration - Mornings on days 3 & 4

On the morning of day 3, we would commence a workshop session in which we would feedback to other members of the research and client team that were present, sharing our insights discovered over the first 2 days, and discussing and ideating with them about our next steps.

We would iterate the triggers and turn them into more tangible concepts based on the insights from the first two days, and tailor our discussion guide to an area of focus on area in which we saw the need for.

Co-creation workshops - Afternoon and evenings on days 3 & 4

After the ideation and iteration sessions with the team in the morning, we invited three pairs of friends each day to help us understand more about the multi-channel shopping journey, and also help co-create ideas. These sessions follow a similar structure to the ethnographic interviews, however they enable us to dig deeper into pain points and solutions.

Zoom out workshop and business prioritisation

On the fifth day of the Field Studio, we have a final workshop in which we share and discuss all of our insights back to the rest of our team. A Field Studio team is made up of UX Researchers, Designers & Developers (this is a big win if you can do this), and members of the client's team so it is important for all attendees share back their experiences of the week.

During the ethnographic studies and workshops during the week we asked participants to rank concepts, and it is in the final day workshop that we use this ranking, and our own observations, to prioritise the top 10 concepts. Once we have reduced the overall concepts down we then went through a further round of business prioritisation, in which we narrowed down to three final concepts. Out of these three, we narrowed down to one final concept that had the greatest user need and the highest business value (this is why you need your client stakeholders in the room).

The final output of this workshop can vary from project to project, however for this Field Studio we created a Product Canvas for the top idea, in which we presented back to the client at the final presentation, along with the consumer insights.

The outputs

We presented an 'Insights and Recommendations deck' back to New Look shortly after the Field Studio

New Look acquired a product canvas that provided them a validated idea to take forward, and 12 concepts that have gone through four days of consumer feedback

New Look gained insights into the multi-channel shopping journey from a representative set of their target audience